


You Have One New Message

by kenthel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenthel/pseuds/kenthel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michimiya Yui follows the advice from an anonymous message and crosses paths with Kageyama Tobio.   The chance meeting has her fixated and determined to meet him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Umbrellas

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. Have some easygoing, drama-free high school romance.
> 
> To soup: I really tried to work with the supernatural prompt and it was so difficult for me. Hopefully this slice of life is okay! This was a (surprisingly) challenging experience. Anyway, Happy White Day.

You have one new message.

Yui looked at her phone skeptically. It did not seem like an appropriate time to receive a text message. It was 5 o’clock in the morning, a time for brains to be properly sleeping and not coordinating thumbs to send words to others. She mumbled incoherently at the disturbance of her last sleep cycle before her alarm failed to rouse her and her mom wailed on her door with a broomstick like a harbinger of the apocalypse.

Unknown sender: Add as contact?

The mystery messenger had set their ID as UPTHERE;).

If Yui had been functioning fully enough to be creeped out, this would have been the moment she slammed her finger furiously on the block button and tried to black the incident from her memory. But she wasn’t. A fading curiosity lingered like the last tendril of a cobweb in the corner of her consciousness. She needed to know what Mr. UpThere-Winkyface had to say.

He, an ambiguously chosen gender pronoun Yui affixed to the sender, said, “Bring two umbrellas today.”

“Roger that,” Yui replied. She slid her forefinger around haphazardly and misspelt the short phrase so many times that she decided to send sticker of an atrociously well-dressed cat in a sailor hat saluting instead. She darkened the screen and hid her face under her pillow. She returned readily to the natural habitat of the teenager at such an ungodly hour - slumberland.

 

 

It was a particularly spectacular morning, as far as mornings went. The sky was a blushed pink above the brim of the trees and a furiously gorgeous sex-red around the sun as it lazed up from the horizon. The balmy and carefree breeze wound through the individual loops of the chain link fence and tickled the hairs on Yui’s arms. There were clouds, but they were ages from rain, stretched cotton balls. You could’ve mistaken them for jet exhaust if you weren’t squinting.

So nice out.

So no-need for two goddamn umbrellas. One of them was a forgotten article of her younger cousin; it was a child-sized Spiderman umbrella with fake web texturing on the handle. The other was a run of the mill 500 yen convenience store emergency buy. Normally, Yui was none too concerned with the keeping up of appearances, but this was a sidestep into the uncomfortable zone of unseemliness. 

Yui’s friend, Suzuki Mio, waited for her at the end of the road.

“Nice umbrella,” Mio told her. She snickered against the palm of her over-moisturized hand. Her nails were french, but her pinky nail’s fakeness had fallen off and was in dire need of buffing, repainting, something.

“Thanks,” Yui replied. She shined her best caustic smile. 

“Where’d you get it?” Mio could not just let the sleeping dog (read: teenage synergy of defensiveness and irrational irritability) lie.

“Just inside my front door?” Yui replied slowly. Her exasperation wallowed in the last aspirations of her words. This was a warning to let Mio know to drop it while they were still walk-to-school-and-bitch-about-homework buddies.

Mio closed her lips and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She had not meant to make the deep, little noise emitted from said click. It was a nervous tick of hers, so she looked off into the sunrise embarrassed.

The two walked a block in tentative uneasiness that compounded when their footsteps lined up in pace.

“That geometry homework though,” Mio exclaimed. 

“Right! Seriously,” Yui agreed.

The spell was broken, but the two umbrellas were still on Yui’s arm.

 

 

Wouldn’t you know it? Ten minutes after dismissal and the sky decided to go full-ominous-shroud on everyone. We’re talking about illumination sucked from the sky. The brightness turned down on your smartphone screen. You weren’t sure there was ever a sun up there to begin with. People sprinted to get home or to a bus or onto a bicycle asap before the first droplets leaked from the bulbous thunderheads gurgling above.

Except Yui (and the hundreds of other students who chose to participate in after school extra curriculars). She was heading over to the Girl’s Volleyball clubroom to change for afternoon practice. 

Mio had arrived first. After school, she morphed into Yui’s vice-captain extraordinaire who had earned her pinky nail battle scar practicing her blocks the previous week. She was the ear Yui had to complain to when their teammates were being lazy asses. Which was always. 

A handful of first years were sent as the bearers of bad news: the second years were skipping out early to avoid getting caught out in the rain. Yui wanted to drag them by their ears back to practice and make them share the tiny-ass Spiderman umbrella all the way to the bus stop. She also wanted to get angry at the first years for not putting up a fight in favor of their lackluster volleyball team.

Yui didn’t give them a hard time. She was a nice captain! A free high-five and praise dispenser. When they trained physically, Yui trusted her girls to know their limits and wouldn’t hassle them when they got tired. All grade levels completed the cleaning tasks at almost-equal ratios. 

Practice never went as well as Yui expected. She went in with a solid itinerary in-mind provided by their club advisor. Minutes of valuable time got hemorrhaged by the slow responses to instruction, the gossiping, the texting on the sidelines, the shoe-tying, and the hair braiding. She hated to raise her voice in anger or annoyance and her passive aggressive glances weren’t getting her anywhere. Yui was already tired and it had only been half an hour. 

 

 

Yui lingered in the clubroom after the others left. Mio peaced out with her school bag propped up over her hair and scampered along to her part-time job at the Sports Authority. The room smelled like sweat and hairspray. The air was disgustingly thick with memories that blended together into a sludge of emotions. Their team often hoped to win with excitement bubbling in their stomachs. Then, they lost miserably and agonizingly in blazing trainwrecks of who-were-we-even-kidding. 

Yui tried not to blame herself, but, well. She sighed and contemplated kicking the lockers. Last thing she needed was to walk home in the onslaught of relentless water with a broken toe. She hoisted up her bags and her umbrellas. With one last sigh and a long, pitiful noise playing concomitant in her throat, Yui locked the door to the clubroom.

 

 

It was really coming down. Even with Yui’s umbrella, the guidance of the wind had soaked through her knee-highs. Her socks descended to become more like bunched crew-cuts. The storm alluded that it was presently night-time. Maybe it was. Yui wasn’t one to remember frivolous things like the precise minute of sunset on any given Wednesday of normally wet April.

Walking by the bike shelter, Yui noticed that there was a lone student leaning against the fashionably contorted curves of the bike rack. He looked damp and grumpy. He appeared too busy brooding to notice Yui. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his brow furrowed, and his lips clenched into a tight line. You’d think someone had drawn his mouth on in magic marker.

Yui considered the Spiderman umbrella on her arm carefully. It toyed with the generally stable boundary between benevolent and mocking. 

She ducked under the metal awning. The rain was deafening - consider peanut m&m’s crashing enduringly against a ceiling of aluminium cookie sheets.

“Hey!” Yui called.

The guy heard her. His features relaxed into something considerably less dagger-glaring. He jerked his head to indicate the rain and shrugged. Years of body-language translation had prepared Yui for this interaction.

‘Can’t be helped,’ the guy non-verbally said.

“I’ve got an extra umbrella,” Yui started. She raised up the blue and red childhood monstrosity like a miniature javelin. “You can have it.”

An eyebrow raised and a gaze swept over Yui like airline scanner. He appraised the umbrella incredulously.

‘Are you being serious right now,’ he replied.

A microcosm of shame crackled through the nerves of Yui’s brain only to be overridden by warped consideration and pride. She changed tactics and folded her normal umbrella to offer instead.

“You can take this one,” Yui said. “You’re a lot bigger than me, so it only makes sense.”

“No!” he said suddenly. He took a step forward and pointed fiercely towards the Spiderman umbrella. “This one is fine.”

There was an unbridled resolve smouldering in eyes the color of deceptively deep waters. Too much resolve, really, for a request lacking any gravity.

A half a beat passed with Yui gazing dumbly upward. (She blatantly lifted her chin just to look him in the face). Her teeth dug into her lower lip to hold back a mood stabilizing, friendly giggle. You know, the ‘haha yeah, well, anyway’ laugh that translated to ‘this is kind of uncomfortable, let’s move on.’ 

Then, the guy glared at something off to Yui’s left. His fingers twisted his bangs into a point in the middle of his forehead and squeezed out rainwater. The tips of his ears were flushed red. The shoulders of his black uniform were drenched even darker and clung heavily to his body. 

“Well,” Yui reasoned, “they’re my umbrellas so. . .” She thrust the dripping white one into his chest. “Please use this!”

He didn’t exactly smile with his thanks, which would have been nice, but his eyes went wide in ecstatic disbelief. His lips twitched free from the clamp of his jaw and sat comfortably neutral. 

Their walks home parted in opposite directions outside the school gates. Yui waved and he returned it with an amicable nod of his head.

 

 

Yui felt flares of embarrassment whenever she glimpsed her reflection in a window or a concave mirror on a corner. The Spiderman umbrella was surprisingly resilient in its battles against the gusts and buffets of smarting rain, but its truncated limbs only could do so much. Once home, she stood dripping in the foyer and shed heavy socks and squelching shoes. Yui flicked her curling hair from her eyes and allowed herself a smile. Yui thought about the boy whose name she never caught. Something warm threaded through her heart. It felt good.


	2. Tag Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yui and Mio use Daichi to find a lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next chapter was so much longer than the first one that I'm trying to break it up a little.

Yui’s music stopped playing from her phone and it vibrated angrily in her pocket. She gladly removed it, always ready for a study break. There was a message from UPTHERE;).

“Spend quality time with friends tomorrow.”

Well, that was sufficiently cryptic. Yui was bored enough to follow the advice of some bot spammer LINE account as much as the next teenager, but this message actually required her to squander precious brain resources pondering the implications. 

She slurped from the cup of weak tea she hadn’t had the patience to steep for long enough and picked up her mechanical pencil to return to her homework. She tapped the end of her pencil against the table instead of putting it to the paper. She daydreamed of finding her umbrella hanging on her shoe locker with a handwritten note of thanks. His writing was crisp and immaculate, but the paper was jaggedly torn from a notebook. He signed with his full name, his phone number, and a ‘hope to hear from you soon.’

The margin of her geometry notebook became a four panel doodle of mystery umbrella kid trying to figure out who she was. Her mind didn’t have the heart to challenge her creative side, but he probably kept it because most people were inconsiderate and that’s the way the world worked. Yui pressed a tad too hard and the graphite snapped, flying off into the void. She dropped unceremoniously back onto the surface of the Earth.

Yui took up her eraser as a cudgel to expunge the tiny reverie from existence, but hesitated before the rounded corner of her weapon could damage his face. The eraser clattered against the desk. Yui brought both hands up to her face to knock some sense into herself. Her fingertips slid down her cheeks with a sigh of acceptance. 

“He was so cute.”

 

“Mio, I need to copy your homework,” Yui begged.

Mio was trying a new hairstyle. A braid curled along her hairline and was pinned behind her ear. It was cute as hell. She kept touching her fingers to the bobby pin like she doubted it was still in place. The action was not unlike a spy tuning into her communication device. 

“It’s yours to take, no promises on the answers though,” Mio replied. But there were those telltale delighted quirk of her brow and sideways smile.

“Better than nothing,” Yui accepted. Then, the gears turned and grinded in her mind to conjure up some a-grade subject change before that inquisitive look became the inquisition it foretold.

Too late.

“So uh, why didn’t you get it done? If you don’t mind me asking.” Mio didn’t really care if you minded her asking, but that was the polite way to broach the conversation. She was already closing the distance. Yui swore those little ears with surgical steel hoop earrings were wiggling eagerly.

“Oh, you know, got a little distracted.” Yui stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and bonked herself on the head with a mildly reprimanding fist. 

Mio could smell half-truths. The sumptuous aroma of freshly unearthed gossip narrowed her eyes in calculation.

“Distracted by?”

There was no point in denying it when Yui was itching to spill. She’d doodled two whole pages of him in the flare of her infatuation and woke up with black smudges on her face.

“I met this guy yesterday,” Yui began, voice low.

Mio’s face contorted into cat who’d eaten the canary, teeth flashing with fulfillment.

“Tell me everything.” 

Despite Mio’s antagonistic, insatiable thirst for drama and romance, she was dismally logical and aware of the laws of the universe at all times. She could drink in the futility of the face without a name and the less than ten words exchanged. The description Yui gave started with his oh-so-blue eyes and ended with the general description of every other darkhaired individual in their school. 

“How tall was he?” Mio prompted, scrounging for details.

Yui raised a measuring hand above her head. “Oh, about yea tall.”

“Oh, Yui.” Mio’s hope was trickling away steadily like the grains of an hourglass.

“What?”

“Give me something to work with here. Something to write home about. Something to casually bring up in conversation to fish for names and whereabouts.”

Yui hesitated. The morning was being unkind to her despite it reeking wonderfully of recent rain. Yui stopped at a vending machine outside the tobacco shack for can of extra light, extra sweet pick me up. Yui barely tolerated her sugar with coffee and cream.

“You know, he kind of struck me as a bad boy type,” Yui realized, mumbling against the rim of her cafe au lait. The Tommy Lee Jones on the label judged everyone as he grimaced around his pipe.

“No!” Mio gasped. She froze mid-bend with her fingers spread to grab her C.C. Lemon.

“Yes,” Yui confirmed. “He was skulking around the bike racks, looking angry. Justifiably angry, I’m sure!”

The soft drink opened with a pop and fizzle. Mio pondered as she drank deeply. She sucked on the opening and made the bottle cave inward. She removed her reddened lips from the rim and air rushed to bully the plastic back into the manufacturer's’ intended shape.

“I think that certainly narrows the playing field,” Mio reflected.

 

There wasn’t an umbrella hanging off of Yui’s shoe locker. Nor was there a charming handwritten note inside of it. He hadn’t waited for her outside the school gates or just inside the front doors. Maybe he wasn’t here yet. 

Yui could forgive him for now.

Mio was on the case, burning through her contacts to compile a list of suspects. This amounted to asking a well-connected chain of female friends for names of miscreants and making sure Yui didn’t know them. They ruled out everyone in the senior year. There hadn’t been any hot delinquent transfer students. Between Mio and Yui’s knowledge combined, all the other seniors had at least a last name and class number to match their face.

Yui walked through the hallways slowly and took her time to absorb every unfamiliar face she passed. No luck. He was like a needle in a haystack. Her inner romantic depicted the needle as tall, dark, and handsome with sapphire googly eyes and the haystack as plain uniformed men with hiragana characters for faces.

Their first break came during lunchtime. Yui and Mio successfully cornered the third year captain of the boys’ volleyball team to dig for information. It was one of the few perks of being the girls’ volleyball leadership. 

Mio managed to stare him down despite being ten centimeters shorter than him.

Sawamura Daichi, under much duress, admitted he may know one member of the underclassman criminal element. 

Mio flicked her hair impatiently over her shoulder and rested her hand on her hip. In addition to her fabulous braid, Mio was sporting opaque black thigh highs under her skirt. When she adjusted her weight to a particular leg, a sliver a tan thigh could be seen.

“So, when are you going to introduce us?” Mio demanded.

Leaning a hand on his shoulder, playing the role of good cop, Yui added warmly, “You can take your time. We truly appreciate your assistance.”

Daichi shook his head and chuckled to himself. “How about after practice? I don’t think either of us have anything going on.”

The look with lightly mascaraed eyelashes fluttering twice from Mio was enough for Yui to ascertain that she was, in fact, off from work that evening. Her eerie smirk of righteous victory gave Yui the creeps in the best way - like the way her favorite song made her arms break out in gooseflesh.

“Well, Sawamura, you and Delinquent-kun have got yourselves a double date,” Yui concluded. She reached up and ruffled his hair like she was praising a puppy. There was a distant pang of affection. It tolled from a far-off iron bell of the faded crush Yui had once fostered for Daichi. 

The bell rang again, a tad bit louder, when Daichi smiled with his teeth showing and his eyes almost closed over. His hair was oddly fluffy, too. But that was neither here nor there. Yui had a new potential torch to carry, or, at least, an umbrella borrower to confront.

The actual bell chimed. Students flocked to their classrooms. Yui and Mio whined as they settled into their desks. Yui realized with a jolt of panic and depression that she had completely forgotten to copy Mio’s homework.


	3. There He Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, they find him.

The chastising of old Mr. Mathman weighed down Yui’s conscience, but the rest of the day was plainly uneventful. Yui kept watch on the halls and wished she had a spyglass to aid in her careful observation of passerbyers aloud. Mio advised her that there was a minimum of discretion a woman was expected to maintain. To hell with that, Yui thought. Just because they might have a lead meant nothing. It could be a dead end.

Yui was all about taking some initiative. At least, when it came to finding the guy. Afterwards, she would devolve into the incapable, stuttering mess plagued with insecurity and hormones and all would be right with the world.

 

Practice was going well for once. The second years who had skipped out looked guilty enough for Yui to forgive them. They did extra laps and turned off the cell phones for good measure. 

Time was called during the scrimmage for a setter to tie her shoes and Yui watched the minute hand jerk closer to the meeting time. A picture of a raindrenched face looking down at her flittered across her imagination for a fragile moment.

“Hey!” Mio called out.

Yui’s eyes flicked back to the court a microsecond before the oncoming serve beamed her directly in the face. She teared up. Her teammates crowded around her with handkerchiefs drawn like all of their maternal instincts had activated at once. Yui waved them away with a smile and gingerly pressed a fingertip to her nose. It was only minorly painful after the initial shock of the impact.

A jab in the ribs pried all attention away from the residual stinging of her face. Mio glared at her.

“Ground control to Captain Yui,” Mio chimed, “Let’s get back down outta the ionosphere, alright? Fifteen minutes of good hard play left.”

Yui blushed.

“Right, sorry girls,” Yui said. Everyone has their moments, she consoled herself.

“Jeez, Mio, you’d think the ball to the kisser would be punishment enough,” another third year joked.

“Now, now.” Yui was already over it. She was going to blast this next spike right through Mio’s block for revenge.

 

“You were aiming for me, weren’t you?” Mio accused, practice jersey bunched up in one hand.

Yui slid off her knee pads with a sly smirk and replied, “Maybe.”

“You never loved me,” Mio anguished. She threw her sweaty shirt at Yui’s face.

The other girls giggled. 

 

This was it. Yui was rubbing her palms together as she and Mio waited outside the school gates. Positive thoughts. Daichi’s contact would have an endless pool of names of students. The names would be kept in a manila folder with bad photocopies of student IDs in case he needed a reference.

“Sometime occurs to me,” Yui said.

“Oh?” Mio looked up from her cell phone and her overabundance of charms rattled heavily.

“No matter how well or poorly this goes, we still get free dinner.” Yui winked.

“Why do you think I agreed to the meeting in the first place?”

The cavalry approached. Black clothed figures slinked around the corner of the athletics building. Two broke away from the crowd, hollering indistinctly, as they sprinted towards the gates. 

The smaller, noisier boy with a mess of pumpkin orange hair pulled ahead. His hair bounced with each step and his mouth spewed an endless barrage of nonsense.

“Getting ahead, Kageyama, gotta watch, gotta wait, gotta see me leaving you in the dust or the pebbles or whatever I’m kicking up into your face right now! Wee ooo wee ooo.” He mimicked an ambulance and hooked between the girls with no awareness for their situation on his way by.

His competitor let out a strangled curse as something fell from his person and clattered against the cobblestone. He stopped, skidding on the walkway. He bent to retrieve a plastic umbrella from the ground and dusted it off carefully with his sleeve. He glowered at the water-deterring apparatus with subtle condemnation, shook his head, and tucked it under his arm. He shoved his hands in his pockets with an expression determined to sour milk.

Yui inhaled sharply and reached over to tug on Mio’s shirtsleeve. Words piled up in the back of her throat and fought to breach through her uselessly flapping lips first.

“What is it?” Mio asked, miffed. She was turned the other way, about to give the flippant kid a piece of her mind.

“That’s him,” Yui breathed.

“That ginger grade schooler?” Mio pointed off into the distance with disbelief, eyebrows pulled so far upward from the revelation that her forehead was lined.

Keeping her grip on Mio, Yui pulled her insistently to the other side of the wall. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably. 

“No, walking towards us right now,” Yui clarified. “The one with the umbrella.”

Mio tossed her own book on feminine tact out the window and leaned out from the cover of the brick to gawk. 

“Uh. He’s almost here.”

That’s not good, Yui thought, panicked. Mio was about to jump ship and leave her stranded. She clamped down on Mio’s forearm, her well-filed nails trying to sink through the fabric.

“Don’t you dare leave me.”

Right then, Yui’s dream boy rounded the corner. He was just as tall and dark and broody as he had been yesterday. The rhythm of Yui’s pulse picked up to hurry a surplus of blood to her face and neck. 

He had eyes only for her, tracing her face, and his natural frown softened.

He offered the umbrella.

“Thank you for yesterday,” he said.

“It was nothing, I’m glad it got to be of use.” Yui released Mio, to whom she was still frightfully clung, and accepted the umbrella. Her fingers brushed his intentionally and she was disappointed that he did not appear to notice or react in any way.

“I’ll be going home now,” he announced, giving an awkward half-bow as he walked away, “See you around.”

He walked briskly, with his shoulders hunched. The day’s dwindling sunlight danced in the freshly rinsed shine of his hair. His fingers had been warm and his heat rapidly dissipated from the plastic of the umbrella in Yui’s arms. Yui glimpsed plain white ankle socks where his pants failed to reach his shoes. The shadow he cast was long and dark.

An elbow dug painfully into her upper arm. Mio’s voice echoed plainly in her thoughts. ‘What do you think you’re doing, just standing around here. Go after him!’

Yui hid her face in her hands. “I can’t! Did you just see how cool he was just now?”

“I’m not longer sure we witnessed the same exchange,” Mio stated bluntly, “He was so freshman it was almost painful. I thought you said he was some kind of badass.”

Before Yui had an opportunity to properly restore the honor of her object of affection, the rest of the men’s volleyball team arrived and started a chorus of goodbyes. Daichi, with a paternal air of confidence, advised his team to rest well and eat heartily to preparation for practice the next day. 

Daichi walked up alone. He had a hand behind his head and eyes rolled skyward searching for an excuse.

“Sorry, my degenerate got himself detention between lunchtime and practice,” Daichi said.

Mio huffed. “Don’t sweat it, cap’n, you’re off the hook. Well, almost.”

Yui perked up and indicated to the (quite distant, frankly) figure down the hill. “Tell me his name!”

“Whose?” Daichi glanced over to where Yui was gesturing.

Yui let out a noise of frustration, threw an arm around Daichi’s shoulders, and guided his viewpoint with her arm extending right along his face. The umbrella she carried pressed into Daichi’s back.

She yelled in his ear, “That one! The tall one. At the bottom of the hill.”

“Oh!” It dawned on him. “That’s your umbrella. I was wondering why he got so pissed when Hinata swung it at him like a katana.”

Mio’s french fingernails came into view and she snapped twice in Daichi’s face. “His name.”

“Kageyama!” Daichi yelped. “Kageyama Tobio.”

 

(“Do you think we should help him?” Asahi asked. He started to perspire anxiously as Daichi was captured and bullied.

Suga pulled out his phone and snapped a photo with an obnoxious shutter. “We can only honor his memory.” )

 

The girls gave him some breathing space to confer by themselves a couple paces away.

Mio was suppressing giggles. “Tobio? That’s a funny name.”

“It’s just a name! Roses and sweetness, Mio,” Yui snapped halfheartedly, “You don’t see me mocking your beautiful cherry blossoms.”

“But I am the human embodiment of beautiful cherry blossoms,” Mio boasted, cutely posing her hands to frame her face.

Yui could feel her confidence failing even before she administered her reply. “Well, maybe he’s the human embodiment of. . . of jumping!”

“He’s a setter, actually,” Daichi informed them, before adding, “Not that his jumping is anything to scoff at.”

“This is a private conversation!” Mio insisted, waggling a scolding finger.

Daichi recoiled and looked off to the departing members of his team like he considered joining them in just going home. He paused, then took out his phone and started to make a call.

>>“Hello?”

The brick of the wall wasn’t the most comfortable place to lean against as the strength momentarily faded from Yui’s knees. She was a living, breathing overreaction. The plastic umbrella squeezed between her hands exacerbated the clamminess of her palms. Yui steadily approached the limit of yearning sighs she could emit in a day.

>>“This is Sawamura.”

Mio patted her shoulder. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Let me suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous crushing,” Yui advised. 

Yui compiled her information on Kageyama Tobio into a mental metal filing cabinet. A quaint silver key on a ring sealed the drawer closed. Colored tabs marked each category of data they’d acquired - blue for proven truths, yellow for extrapolations, and red for wild dreams. So, that made two sparse placeholder sections and a third absolutely brimming in the bitter reachers of the drawer and threatening to overtake the others. Par for the course, really.

>>“No, you’re not in trouble. No need to apologize. I need a favor actually.”

Yui sat. The sidewalk was clean. The cement was white and brushed free of any spots or globs of ugliness. The surface was rough and cool on the backs of Yui’s thighs. She watched her reflection in the sheen of passing cars. The image was hasty and distorted. Mio looked simultaneously ten feet tall and comically short-legged. Speeding vehicles made Yui’s world spin slower on its axis. 

Yui needed to chill. She was reminded, fondly, of her extended (pathetic) infatuation with Daichi. It had crept up on her slowly like plate tectonics only to erupt furiously and violently for a few tumultuous days. The feelings had sputtered out by the end of the month. And they had been friends first. That will be important, Yui deemed, friendship first.

>>“Yeah, I’m going to need you to come back to the school. What? No, take your- hello? Hell. . .o?”

“Are you over it?” Mio asked.

“Yes,” she answered. Yui returned to her feet and brushed the nonexistent dirt off the seat of her skirt.

 

Another wave of students leaked out of from the gates - music types, by the looks of the hard black instrument cases slung over shoulders or toted in offhands. One started an off-key whistle of a tune that made the the crowd burst into an inharmonious amalgamation of groans, visceral complaints, and a smattering of souls brave enough to join.

Yui, Mio, and Daichi stood in collective nonplussed silence. The tune was the theme of Jurassic Park. Eventually, even the most emotionless faces were puckering lips or slapping their thighs to the rhythm as the flood gates broke. They submitted to the genuine catchiness of it. The music broke apart as the crowd dispersed.

Daichi hummed the main melody. Yui punched him in the arm.

“Yeah, you tell ‘im,” Mio agreed. “Only Dino music this world needs is Walk the Dinosaur.”

Mio barely hummed a bar when Yui interrupted, “I got a punch lined up for you, too.”

“Bring it on,” Mio goaded. She hummed obnoxiously to her own song and poked out her tongue in a taunt.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Yui snatched the hairpin holding Mio’s freshly redone braid in place with a surgeon’s accuracy and the long sidebangs unraveled. 

“No! The treachery is too great,” Mio lamented. She pinched her escaped hairs and immediately set to binding them to the side of her head. She puffed out her cheeks in frustration and clicked her tongue. “It’s a lot harder without a mirror, you know.”

And then, during the ceasefire, Kageyama Tobio slalomed through tweeting flutists and trumpeters. He then skated to a halt in front of Daichi from breakneck speed and left a black mark on the sidewalk from the heel of his shoe. He doubled over panting and sweat dripped from his face. 

“Made it back, sir,” Tobio said. After a few big breaths, he yawned and slapped his hand over his mouth to cover it up. His bangs were plastered to his forehead and he’d undone the top two buttons of his uniform.

“I told you you didn’t have to rush, Kageyama,” Daichi scolded lightly, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

Tobio did not offer an explanation.

“Well, now that you’re here, I’d like to introduce you to some of my friends.” Daichi indicated the girls in turn. “Suzuki Mio. Michimiya Yui.”

“Hello,” Mio sang, waving.

“Hey, how’s it going.” Yui hooked the umbrella on her forearm and offered a hand for shaking.

Tobio shook her hand daintily, no doubt trying to not exchange excretion from his moist palm. His youth shined behind his eyes without the shroud of frustration. There was a roundness to his cheeks that met unexpectedly to a defined jawline and chin. He breathed long and slow through his nose to avoid panting in Yui’s face. She appreciated it. They hands fell gracelessly apart.

“Kageyama Tobio. Nice to meet you.”

“What a polite kouhai you’ve got here, Sawamura,” Mio commented.

“Hah. He’s as much trouble as he’s worth,” Daichi responded.

Tobio flinched. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. Let’s all get some food together, shall we?” Daichi suggested.

Mio jumped in excitement. “Woo! Free dinner after all!”

Yui took a deep breath. 

Here goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was talking with a Japanese friend who doesn't follow Haikyuu!! and I told her that Kageyama Tobio was my favorite character. My friend literally snorted with laughter because she thought his name (Tobio) was so silly.


	4. Little Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner's on Daichi. Yui is walked home by Tobio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a chance that the humor won't work for everyone, but I tried.
> 
> For inspiration, I ended up reading a saved AIM conversation from 2009 to remember what it was like to be a teenage girl in love. It was embarrassing and hilarious. If there's awkward texting added to the part after this one, that's why.

Sawamura Daichi was many things. Handsome, smart, and considerate were a few that got teenage girls’ hearts racing. Frightening when angered, an ugly crier, and a nail biter were some others. Made of money, however, he was not.

The group piled into a booth at McDonald’s with their hundred yen menu selection of items and their cheaper drinks snuck in from the convenience store. Tobio and Mio were the first to seat themselves at the table, leaving Yui with the decision to choose which of the two she would rather sit next to. Yui slid across the plastic seat to Mio’s side.

They unwrapped their hamburgers and ate quietly. Yui was succumbing to the internal pressure to make with the pleasantries. The air smelled like hot oil and ketchup. The nearby tables were packed with larger groups of high schoolers. Theirs was the only one with representatives present from more than one gender. 

“So, about that weather and/or local sports team,” Yui said. She let the sentence hang in the relative quiet of soft munching and rubbed her greasy fingertips together.

Daichi picked it up. Gestured vaguely. “Right, right. That weather has been doing that thing lately. I have feelings about the warmth or lack thereof.”

With a french fry dangling from his lips, Tobio paused in his consumption to eye the two with honest befuddlement. He raised a finger to perhaps remark upon the conversation, but it curled back to his hand unsurely.

“And the way the weather was the day of that sports game. The important one between rival teams. What a joyous victory or crushing heartbreak at the outcome,” Mio described. She wiped away a fake tear from her eye.

Daichi laughed just one huff and accidentally spewed bits of partially masticated food across his tray. He belatedly tried, with heated cheeks, to cover it with a cough into a paper napkin.

“Yes, quite right.” Yui tipped her drink to Mio in agreement. “That team with the star player that I know the name of and that other team with the good looking player women love and men try to downplay like he isn’t that amazing.”

Mio whistled. “I may or may not be a fan of said other team, but that one player could autograph my heart.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” Daichi rebuked, setting down his napkin, “That one player is only riding the coattails of the other players. He did not earn the award or accolade or fame he has received the way other players had to.”

Mio and Yui rolled their eyes in practiced unison.

Tobio put his drink down with an untoward amount of force and liquid spurted from the opening. He hid his hands under the table and looked at the peeling red paint on the wall of the restaurant. Lines too severe for a fifteen-year-old appeared between his brows.

“What,” Tobio paused, bit his lip, and tried again, “What sport are you talking about?”

An odd silence settled over the table. Yui made to ball up her wrapper, but it was too crinkly. She could see Daichi trying to catch her eye with a tilt of his head. The urge to laugh out loud and reach across the table to ruffle Tobio’s hair was abnormally strong.

“Oh, honey,” Mio cooed, smiling to herself. 

Daichi opened his mouth to explain everything to the distressed first year who hadn’t seen the ball since the proverbial kick off.

Yui beat him to it. “Well, what sport are you most interested in?”

“Volleyball,” Tobio answered with an candidness that caught her off-guard.

The other occupants of the table let out a half sigh. Tell us something we don’t know, it said.

“Well, it just so happens that Suzuki and Michimiya here are the vice-captain and captain of the girls’ volleyball team, respectively,” Daichi mentioned. He nudged Tobio in the arm with an elbow.

“Maybe we could be coerced into regaling you with some of our greatest stories,” Mio offered loftily. She pretended to be distracted by her fingernails. “Unless you’d rather just eat and be on your way.”

A gleam of light flashed across his eyes as Tobio straightened in his seat. He scarfed down the remaining half of his hamburger tastelessly and wiped a smear of ketchup from the corner of his lips on the back of his hand. A cough escaped him and Tobio pounded on his chest as the food lodged in his throat decided downward would not be its destination. Daichi, Yui, and Mio observed in perplexed silence. Yui moved to offer her drink, but Tobio had already seized his own with a groping hand. He drank, the noise of his swallow immense, and breathed in relief.

“Please share,” Tobio requested formally.

“Are we going to pretend like you didn’t almost just die?” Mio asked.

Tobio looked down into his emptied drink and blushed.

The sight yanked hard on the reins of Yui’s conscience. She pinched Mio’s thigh under the table. Mio jerked her knee hard up into the table with a muffled squeak.

“Take it away, captain,” Daichi redirected.

“Thank you, captain.” Yui gladly accepted the segway.

Yui did, going through her favorite memories of high school volleyball. It was nice to share the tales to a new audience. Mio dropped her two cents in on the situation here and there. Even Daichi could relate, remembering the first time he heard each story and telling Tobio about when he did and how. One shared event between the three of them as first years when a borrowed ball ended up on the roof was a riot to recall.

Tobio made a wonderful audience, for the most part. He sat at rapt attention. He turned his entire body towards the speaker and had an unnerving skillfulness for maintaining eye-contact. His chest shook as it suppressed evidence of laughter and his lips contorted to seal away smiles.

Mio’s phone rang exuberantly from the tabletop, a call from her father incoming. The group jolted from the comfort of conversation and into the nervousness of impending curfews. They cleared their trash and exited the restaurant. 

Mio ran ahead, attempting to console an anxious dad who was no doubt pacing a hole in the den with his mismatched house slippers. 

“See you tomorrow, Suzuki!” Daichi called after her, waving. 

Her thigh highs sagged to her knees as she sprinted out of the strip mall. She did not look back.

Daichi’s hand dropped, crestfallen.

“She’s fast,” Tobio commented. 

“When she needs to be,” Yui replied, shaking her head. Really, she should be right behind Mio. Her expected time to be home had come and gone a half an hour ago, but she wanted to stay.

“We should do this again sometime,” Daichi said, looking to Yui, “You’ll put in a good word for me, won’t you?”

“It’s the least I can do,” Yui said. A twinge of jealousy panged in her heart.

“You’re the best, thank you,” Daichi praised. He looked relieved and scratched the back of his head. Recovering, Daichi thwacked Tobio across the back with an open hand. “Walk the lady home for me. I gotta run.”

“Yes, sir,” Tobio agreed instantly, wincing from the blow.

Yui opened her mouth to object and call out Daichi on his obvious ploy, but stopped.

Daichi said his goodbyes and was off into the night. He slipped into a crowd of people that gathered around the bus stop.

Tobio watched Yui expectantly.

“Right, ah.” Yui laughed nervously. “This way.”

 

The night was peaceful. The side streets of the neighborhood were dark. The moon was not really quite up to the task of lighting their way and the stars, despite glittering brilliantly, provided little vision. Tobio and Yui walked single file. Cars eased around them down the cramped road and blinded them with an excessive use of high beams. 

Trees whispered in the wind, branches creaking. A single owl hooted happily from its unseen perch. It grew quieter with each step away from main street; The chatter of people became empty noise beneath the rumble of traffic. Inside the houses, variety shows or news channels played on televisions and families chorused in thanks over dinners.

“So,” Yui called over her shoulder, “you got any hobbies besides volleyball?”

“Reading comic books and playing the piano,” Tobio said. His tone was plain and uninterested like he read the line from a textbook.

Yui considered Tobio poised over a beautiful grand piano of pristine whiteness. His eyes were closed and his face grimaced in concentration. Graceful, long fingers danced across the keys. Yui inwardly swooned. She’d put three years of half-hearted effort into the oboe before her mother finally let her quit at the beginning of high school. Yui would be hard-pressed to remember the fingering for Hot Cross Buns.

“How long have you played the piano?” she asked.

“About two years, it’s not anything impressive.”

Yui fell into line with Tobio and smiled up at him. “I think it’s impressive.”

“I don’t think it really helped with volleyball any.” Tobio looked off into the dark shrubbery of the yard they passed with a soft bashfulness.

“How would it?” Yui was not seeing the connection.

“My middle school coach used to talk a lot about timing.” Tobio illustrated with a slightly gruffer voice and two simultaneously clenching hands. “‘You see, Kageyama-kun, a toss is all about the timing, the rhythm of the game.’ I brought the idea up to my parents, the rhythm and whatever, and they set me up with piano lessons on Sunday mornings.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t go for dance lessons instead,” Yui remarked. Maybe she was a tad disappointed that he wasn’t secretly a wounded piano prodigy waiting to serenade his one true love. Her updated mental image of a confused and frustrated volleyball freak of a middle schooler fidgeting and quailing under the strict meter stick of a piano teacher sufficed.

Tobio titled his head to the side and held his chin in thought. “I think that piano was maybe a mistake. In volleyball, the team creates its own rhythm that like, fights the opponents, but when you’re playing the piano, you kind of follow the notes on the paper?” He traced along an invisible score with his forefinger.

Yui didn’t know what to say. She laughed to delay her need to respond.

“Yeah, I guess so, but like -” Yui struggled to form the comparison. “-once you’re good enough at the piano, you can kind of do whatever you want.”

Tobio considered her very seriously. “You’re right.”

Yui wasn’t confident in the nonsense she’d conjured from thin air and offered to her kouhai, but she was happy Tobio believed her. 

They made light conversation all the way down Yui’s road - birthdays, favorite foods, Yui mentioned the oboe and Tobio didn’t know what it was, comic book interests that never overlapped - and it was great. Yui floated up the walkway to her front door and was loath to say goodbye.

“Hey, give me your LINE,” Yui said, taking out her phone.

“Sure.”

Tobio’s picture was an pixelated volleyball and it was perfect.


	5. Study Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, I've bolded text conversations to hopefully improve clarity.
> 
> So, my lovely and subtle s/o told me my original draft of this chapter was trash so I scrapped about 60% of it and rewrote it. I'm still somewhat unsatisfied, but I think the changes make this part fit into the story more neatly than before. Also, I put a constraint that I wasn't allowed to play any more Stardew Valley unless I updated. 
> 
> There will be one more chapter. Again, I feel the need to scrap what I have so it'll probably be a bit. Golden Week is coming up, so I'll have extra time to work on it then.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

Yui messaged Tobio more than anyone else. He accepted her every observation with austere comments and some incorrectly employed emojis.

Things that prompted Yui to whip out her phone included, but were not limited to:

A crow watched her from the fence of her house with an intense intelligence while it spread its disheveled wings and opened its chipped slate beak to reveal a slender strip of pale pink tongue.

An abandoned pair of sneakers in a public park that were posed or arranged in a different fashion every time Yui encountered them.

A mortifyingly hard-earned C on a quiz that pertained to the conversions of degrees and radians that Tobio should learn to be respectfully fearful of by his third year.

The three day forecast suggested rain. 

And so on.

It was mid-message on a groggy Friday afternoon. Yui relayed a live commentary of her overzealous computer teacher’s tirade on the history of the Apple logo when she was interrupted with a message from the long silent UPTHERE;). The notification popped up and outright demanded immediate attention.

**\--Don’t neglect your studies!**

Yui had figured that a month of radio silence would mark the last she heard from him. This latest contribution to their sparse exchange made Yui suspect that her mother had created a phony account to advise her of frivolous things. Just wait, the next one would say, ‘Your lucky item for today is the oboe!’

Doubt nagged at her thoughts like a child tugging their mother’s skirt. Yui decided to switch her phone off for the remainder of class. Paying attention for once wouldn’t be the end of the world. Though, of course, her phone was stirred back to life the instant the teacher left the room.

 

**Kageyama!!**

**\--Michimiya-senpai.**

**How’re your grades?**

**\--...**

**That good, huh?**

**\--No, they’re not that good.**

**Let’s study together~ [thumbs up]**

**\--Okay. [computer]**

 

Yui discovered a hitch in her plan. They reached the doors of the school library after practice and saw shadowy darkness behind the windows through the book fair advertisements.

“Wait, oh no,” Yui lamented.

Tobio twisted the brass door knobs in both directions and rattled the fresh doors in their frames.

“Why is it locked?” he questioned. He glared at the shining door knobs with righteous conviction.

“The library is closed,” Yui emphasized, pointing at the clearly posted hours on the wall adjacent to the entrance.

Tobio thought long and hard with the floor centered in his vision. One hand stroked nonexistent scruff along his gorgeous jawline. A key part of being Tobio, so it seemed, was to spend an exorbitant amount of time reflecting in trivial situations and to act on frantic instinct when cogitation would prove useful. He glanced up. Revelation shined in his eyes and leaked out the corners of his mouth.

“We’ll go to my house,” he decided.

“What? Are you sure?” Yui asked.

Tobio paused in consideration, then reaffirmed with a nod. “Yeah. It’s not far and I can’t think of anywhere else free and nearby for us to go.”

“I would’ve accepted a rain check, you know.”

“It’s not raining,” Tobio pointed out.

Yui had a healthy curiosity about Tobio’s home that battled with urge to politely decline the offer due to the social standards of life. She swallowed her sigh and let his statement settle the discussion. She followed him out of the school.

 

She drafted an honest, spastic message to Mio complete with animated exclamation points and appropriately scandalized faces. Her expectations were going wild.

Yui could see it. Her fingers brushed his as they reached for the same eraser. He leaned over her to point out an error and she could smell him. Or, perhaps she did the leaning over to correct and he was tempted to peek down her shirt. 

A despairing message was sent to Mio.

**Should I take off my sweater vest?**

Mio was never one to leave Yui in suspense. 

**\--Jesus, Yui. You told me you were studying?? Don’t make me come over there.**

**We are!**

**\--You tell that grumpy lummox that if he lays one hand on you, I swear to all that is holy that I will kick him into the next millennium.**

**Oh my god. Stop.**

Yui and Tobio mixed in with the dismally exhausted band students who plodded strenuously through the gates. The street outside the school was thickly congested with traffic. The air rippled with clouds of exhaust from standing cars. Yui pressed her nose to the cuff of her sleeve to shield herself from the pungent reek of diesel as they passed a construction truck. 

Tobio led her down the hill. Yui gauged the neighbourhood’s affluence based on the cleverness of the garden arrangements, property sizes, freshness of the paint on the window trimmings, and amount of swoop to the clay tiled roofs. She guessed these homes belonged to families well into the upper-middle class.

The Kageyama home was a two story on a half-acre plot with more black driveway than lawn. There was a silver, compact, cubic minivan with an outdated political bumper sticker and its sideview mirrors tucked in.

Curling along the corner of the house was a barren flower garden with weeds sprouting through the black soil lined with cute stones. A trellis stood from the garden against the gray aluminium siding of the house and stopped just shy of a dormer window. The windows of the house were open and sheer forest green curtains caught the evening breeze. 

Tobio reached for the door handle.

Yui inwardly practiced her introduction (first impressions were daunting) and almost missed when Tobio spoke.

“Looks like no one’s home yet,” he observed.

We have lost cabin pressure.

Yui hadn’t signed up for ‘Alone with the Cute Boy’ expansion of the study-group package. She wondered if it cost extra.

Her voice crawled up an octave. “Is that so?”

The Kageyama home was strangely. . . pristine. Someone had taken a protractor to these pieces of furniture to get them at the perfect angle. The decorations were grouped in threes of symmetry. There were three bronze candlesticks on a shelf below three family portraits (that were probably taken in three year intervals). Three black leather loveseats formed a U around a sleek black television. An overflowing aloe plant sat centered in front of bay windows with pronged sprigs drooping over the lip of its ceramic pot.

Yui carefully arranged her shoes to match those already placed on the rack. Her heart clenched in anxiety that arrhythmically throbbed in her chest. She tucked her hair behind both ears and then shook it out of place. It was a vicious cycle. (Hair in her face was annoying, but she was convinced that it was cuter that way.)

“You can just leave your stuff anywhere,” Tobio said. He threw his bag onto the kitchen table and started unbuttoning his blazer.

Yui shrugged over her own blazer and took her time folding it. She braved a quick opportunity to scope out the young Tobio with his parents crowding the frame from both his sides. The picture was from his elementary school graduation. Tobio was scrawny and round faced with an impressively atrocious bowl cut. 

Mrs. Kageyama was a monstrously tall woman with a curly bob of jet black hair and red painted lips stretched into a disarming smile. She was ducking into the frame and was holding Tobio by the shoulders. She was raising severe, thin eyebrows that detracted from her obvious joy. 

Mr. Kageyama was a half a head shorter than his wife, but probably weighed as much as his wife and son combined. His frame required that he walked sideway through standard doorways. His biceps were bowling balls unflexed, visible in the t-shirt he wore. The sleeves had been jaggedly sheared away by either sloppy scissors or a knife.

Yui could totally imagine him cutting his shirt with a knife.

A small meow distracted her from the photograph. There was a fat, fluffy cream-colored persian cat. He rubbed up against Yui’s calves and peered up at her with vibrantly copper colored eyes and an adorably rose-pink nose. His meow was very tiny and high pitched. He pawed gently at the bunch in Yui’s socks.

Yui, like many humans, suffered from the affliction of visceral incoherence when faced with a cat.

“Kitty!” Yui squealed, dropping down into a crouch to place lightly scratching fingers on the cat’s soft head.

“Oh, yeah. That’s Cookie,” Tobio said.

“Cookie?” Yui felt her face contort from the cuteness and concealed her inexplicable frown behind one hand. “Cookie, you’re such a kitty,” she cooed.

Cookie purred.

Yui eventually made her way over to an open seat at the kitchen table. The table shined in the light, offered a faint reflection, and smelled oddly like citrus.

Tobio hit play on the answering machine blinking from the counter and wandered off to the refrigerator.

The machine had a crisp, feminine voice.

\--“You have one new message.” 

Tobio spoke over it, calling out over his shoulder.

“Want something to drink?” he offered.

“Oh sure,” Yui replied.

\--”Hey, Tobio,” A gruff voice said. “Didn’t want to bother you at practice by calling your cell-”

Tobio stepped aside and let Yui see the inside of the fridge. The shelves had printed labels. This was next level organization.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Yui said. She didn’t have it in her to request something in particular.

Tobio shrugged and reached deep into the bottom shelf with both arms. His hands returned holding two white cans of Kirin Beer. He handed one to Yui, his face unreadable.

“Here you are,” Tobio said.

\--”Traffic outta the city is a nightmare. 684 is a parking lot. Parking lot, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“Um?” Yui didn’t go to take it.

The stalemate between Yui and Tobio intensified. Mr. Kageyama’s monologue echoed in the stillness of the room.

\--”People are gettin’ outta their cars and are walkin’ around. Dazed, confused. I cut the engine fifteen minutes ago. Anyway, I’ll stop waffling on here and let you go. Hopefully I’ll see you before tomorrow.”

The answering machine beeped loudly and announced, “End of new messages. To hear this message again, press four; to hear the callback number, press five; to save this message, press six; to delete this message, press seven; to hear these options again, press zero.”

White noise played through the machine’s speakers for four painful seconds, then was cut.

Tobio’s poker face was cracking from a smile. His resolve crumbled as a blush rose in his cheeks.

“Kageyama!” Yui exclaimed. She pointed at him with an accusation. “Is this a joke?”

Tobio folded and retracted the beers.

“It wasn’t my idea!”

“Then whose was it?” Yui questioned. She crossed her arms and her legs for top ‘none-of-your-bullshit’ aura.

“Sawamura-senpai’s?” Tobio admitted. It was all too easy coercing information out of him. It almost wasn’t fun. Almost. He was growing progressively redder as he returned the alcohol to its hidden section of fridge and grabbed a large pitcher of barley tea (as it was so labeled).

“And why, pray tell?” Yui probed further.

Tobio stood in front of a large cabinet. He held two small glasses pinched between his fingers. He shrugged his shoulders and muttered something.

“I didn’t catch that,” Yui said.

Tobio sighed and carried over the drink and glasses. Eye contact slipped away as easily as it was made.

“I may have been told to,” Tobio paused, then continued with voice that oozed vulnerability, “work the bad boy angle.”

Yui buried her face in her hands. “Oh my god.”

Her vengeance was exacted before the burn on her face faded with a single sentence sent to Daichi that she hoped triggered bone-chilling horror.

**Consider my blessing to pursue Mio rescinded.**

 

Yui and Tobio trudged along their years-separate paths of homework and rigmarole, heads bowed. Cookie complained loudly in the corner by his empty silver dish with his tail twitching impatiently back and forth. The cat’s needy mouthiness was not helping Yui instate a flirty, study-time atmosphere.

Yui caught Tobio sneaking a look at her once. He tried to play it off, reaching for his glass of tea between them. He was just too cute. She gazed at him openly and waited for him to notice. It took about fifteen pencil twirls around her thumb. 

Tobio looked. The sweet expression of torn between self-conscious and flattered was nice to see in the third person for once.

“Let’s take a break,” Yui suggested.

Tobio visibly relaxed and his pen rolled from his loosened fingers.

“Thank goodne- I mean,” he recovered and a paper-thin visage of sterness appeared, “Already?”

“It’s been almost an hour. We deserve a break.”

It had been barely forty minutes. Yui had exactly fourteen words written in her notebook and three of them were complaints in the margin.

“Are you hungry at all? I could make us some food.” Tobio rose from his seat and buried his face in the freezer. “Oh, we have gyoza.”

“That sounds great, thanks,” Yui said. Turned out that even high school seniors could get inopportune voice cracks. Her fingers trembled with excitement as she relayed the update.

**MIO HE IS COOKING FOR ME**

**\--What a keeper. Is it because you took off your sweater vest?**

**SHUT UP.**

**\--You wouldn’t love me if I did.**

Tobio poured a liberal coating of oil into a gigantic black iron skillet and coaxed the electric stove to life with a forceful prodding of its buttons. He turned on the fan while he was at it, which whirled deafeningly before Yui’s ears adjusted. The oil slowly began to spit and Tobio removed a bulging bag of gyoza from the freezer. He hefted it up with both hands to read the instructions.

Yui looked on in awe as he emptied the entire bag into the skillet. One stray frozen dumpling ricocheted off the rim and clattered to the floor. It was frosty and frail down there on the rough textured gray tiling.

There must have been forty dumplings bubbling in the pan as the oil went crazy from the intrusion. Tobio expertly dodged a spout of exploding oil and opened a drawer. He blanked for moment, then resignation took over as he withdrew a light green apron that he hastily draped over his neck and tied behind his back.

“Kageyama,” Yui began, unable to contain herself, “you are too precious.”

Tobio turned with spirited indignation, spatula waving.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded in a rough tone he generally reserved for other men.

“It means, ‘Let me take a picture. I want to preserve this moment forever,’” Yui replied, raising up her phone and tapping the screen to focus the shot.

If nothing else came from tonight, or from her helpless fluttering crush, Yui would always have a picture of being cooked for by a handsome, angry man in an apron to cherish for the rest of her years.

 

Stuffed stiff with greasy gyoza, Yui’s blood thickened to sludge from the excess salt and she struggled to kept her posture presentable. Her wrist wiped the corners of her mouth for lingering dabs of sauce. Their books and papers had been returned to their respective bags to prevent splatter. The idea of even bending at the waist to unzip her bag filled Yui with dread and emotional equivalent of ‘I-don’t-wanna.’

Tobio took their plates over to the sink for washing. He raised his voice to speak over the running water.

“So, uh, do you want to watch a movie or something?” Tobio asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Yui replied.

 

Yui looked at the couch. It was long enough to comfortably seat three and Kageyama had chosen to seat himself in the middle. She couldn’t possible cuddle up right next to him (even if she wanted to, which she might, don’t get her wrong), but the comfort of choosing one of the armrests painfully distant from Tobio would be straight-up frigid. Besides, she wasn’t repulsed by this gangly volleyball nerd with the precociously delicious baritone.

“You can sit,” Tobio reminded, gesturing to the void of couch on either side of him. He shifted slightly to one side, resting a knee on the right couch cushion.

Time wasn’t actually supposed to pass while one internally debated, or at least no one should really point it out. Christ, has this guy ever read any shoujo manga? Yui reconsidered. Inexperience was part of his appeal. Yui sat to his left in a way that she was neither touching his thigh nor the armrest. The warring parties of her soul declared an armistice.

“Oh,” Yui realized, looking at Tobio’s solitary glass of barley tea on the coffee table, “I forgot my drink.”

“I’ll get it,” Tobio said. He leapt to his feet.

The unskippable block of ads concluded, the movie started to play, and happy-go-lucky expository music trickled from the speakers.

Tobio set down the second cup on the coffee table and planted himself directly adjacent to Yui. One of the folds of her skirt was now trapped under his warm thigh. There was a half measure of rest as Tobio was leaning forward with his hands on his knees watching Yui out of the corner of his eye.

It was an upper level body language check for Yui, but she was a professional.

“Is this okay or should I move?” Tobio’s posture was asking, or debating.

“You can sit back, you know,” Yui suggested.

Forty-five seconds of potentially crucial introduction had occurred on the screen and not even the faintest blip pinged on her radar of relevance. 

The movie wasn’t bad, as far as Yui was concerned, but she was more focused on watching Tobio watch the movie and only caught glimpses reflected in his eyes.

With a hasty sideways glance, Tobio peeked at her. He then stretched his arms upward with his hands laced together. His white undershirt rode up to the hem of his pants and not a millimeter further (to Yui’s chagrin). Falling out of the enthusiastic stretch, one arm clapped against the leather of the couch behind Yui.

Even with the warmth of blossoming romance filling Yui’s chest and coating her cheeks, laughter bubbled out of her.

“You’re so not smooth,” Yui told him.

“What do you mean?” Tobio looked at her, aghast.

“I just -” Yui failed to explain herself. She reached up in the boldest move of her young life and took Tobio’s hand in hers. The hand flopped impossibly pliant in her grip as she coaxed his arm to slide off the couch and rest with comfortable weight on Yui’s shoulders.

Confidence rapidly deteriorated like the radioactive isotope hydrogen-7 and Yui stared at her ever-bruised kneecaps and willed her hand to slip off of Tobio’s.

However, his hand reanimated at the last second to catch her fingers between his. His palm was moist and hot, but Yui was sure hers was too. The nerve endings on her skin flared and prickled.

As the movie progressed, Yui’s arm cramped in fear and reluctance to move and she fought the burning discomfort in order to stay connected to Tobio even longer.

 

Tobio shifted next to her. His face was half shrouded in darkness and her name escaped his lips as gently as breath. His adam’s apple bobbed and he worried his lower lip.

 

Yui was afraid to blink.

 

And then, of course, was when the front door opened with a bang.

“I’m home,” a man who could only be Mr. Kageyama bellowed.

Tobio and Yui leapt away from each other like spooked cats and each clawed into their own opposite arm of the love seat.

“Huh? What’s this?” Mr. Kageyama asked. He flicked on the lights in the living room. He was wearing a stained tank top, paint splattered and torn jeans, and a light coat of sawdust.

“W-welcome home,” Tobio stuttered.

“Ah, hello,” Mr. Kageyama said to Yui.

Yui bowed her head. “Good evening.”

Tobio stood with his back painfully erect. “This is my. . . this is Michimiya Yui.”

“Nice to meet you,” Yui said. It was all she could manage while actively preventing her body from reaching the point of shame-sublimation.

“Forgive my appearance,” Mr. Kageyama said. He beckoned his son into the kitchen with a curious expression in his knowing eyes.

“Christ, Tobio.” Mr. Kageyama’s voice permeated the walls effortlessly. “If you had told me you had a girl over, I would’ve been even later.”

Yui’s embarrassment flared anew.

“Really?” Tobio sounded hopeful and relieved.

“No,” Mr. Kageyama answered.

 

Tobio was lectured in the kitchen for about five minutes. During this time, Yui awkwardly watched the end of the movie with a twisting feeling of rejection aching her heart. The walls of the room appeared to close in and slowly expel Yui from the residence. She wanted nothing more than to sneak out before they were done talking. Cookie jumped up into her lap and purred. The cat rubbed the side of his face against Yui’s hand until she made with the head scratches.

They reemerged. Tobio was properly chastised and Mr. Kageyama was tired and reluctant.

Mr. Kageyama offered to drive her home. In the driveway, there was an additional vehicle: a well-maintained, but aged work truck with ladders strapped to its racks and a robust tool crate resting in its bed. He unlocked the doors to the minivan with the remote on his key and settled inside. The vehicle swayed heavily in response to his weight.

The large man looked cramped in the driver’s seat of the minivan with his elbows tucked in to fit his massive arms. He watched Yui and Tobio load themselves into the back seat through the rearview mirror and reminded them to buckle their seatbelts. Yui explained her address to him and Mr. Kageyama stopped her halfway through.

“Oh, I know the place. I did your neighbor’s roof seven years ago,” Mr. Kageyama told her, “And you know the house with the two bay garage on the corner?” He waited for her confirmation. “I built that garage.”

Tobio added, “I’m convinced that my dad built half this town.”

Mr. Kageyama pulled out of the driveway.

“Did my son feed you at least?” Mr. Kageyama asked.

“Yes,” Yui said, “He was a good host.”

“Well, there’s that at least.” Mr. Kageyama chuckled. “By the way, please don’t feel guilty about this - you don’t know our household rules and no blame falls on you.”

Yui nodded. “I understand.”

The streetlights were sparse, but Yui enjoyed watching the streaks of light catch on Tobio’s cheekbones before escaping into the night. 

Yui took Tobio’s hand under the cover of darkness and looked out her window. His fingers closed around hers.

The stars in the night sky burned brighter.


	6. A Fine View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally summer and Mio has the perfect plan to let off some steam from exams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ending has actually been sitting as a rough draft this whole time. At the time, I didn't like the ending and I told myself I'd rewrite it, but well . . time has passed and perhaps I don't hate it as much anymore. With the next rare pair exchange signups happening, I couldn't help but look at this incomplete fic with a twinge of guilt.
> 
> So, here it is, the ending.

“Exams are finally over!” Mio cheered.

Yui leaned her chair back on its hind legs and stretched her arms over her head. Her hand hurt. The classroom soaked in the summer heat from the too bright afternoon sun. She stood up and her thighs audibly unstuck from the plastic seat of her chair. With a hand towel, Yui wiped away the sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck. The ends of her hair were curling and damp with perspiration.

“Ugh, I’m gross,” Yui complained.

“What else is new?” Mio quipped.

Yui batted her on the shoulder with her towel.

Mio wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Not helping your case.”

 

Tobio walked Yui home now. Sometimes, they held hands. Today was not one of those days - it was simply too goddamn hot to share body heat. They stopped at a vending machine and Yui got them both cool drinks. Yui put the butt of her can of sweating soda on the back of Tobio’s neck and he sighed in relief.

“So cool,” he breathed.

"Does your place have air conditioning?" Yui asked. She removed the can and popped the tab open. It immediately fizzed over and dribbled brown bubbles down the side and onto the sidewalk. She brought it to her lips to lap up the foam with her tongue.

Tobio decided to wait to open his, holding it sideways against his forehead.

"It does, but my dad is stingy," Tobio explained, "It's like if the thermostat is below 26 degrees, he’ll have a conniption."

"26 degrees sounds like heaven." 

Yui’s phone started to ring - the LINE jingle muffled in the confines of her bag. It was from Mio. Teenage girls don't call each other anymore. That was, like, before Yui’s time.

She offered Tobio an apologetic smile. He shrugged and held her drink for her.

"Hello?"

"Yui! Oh my god." 

"What is it?" 

"So, guess who’s got four one day bracelets for the Seaside Park to use tomorrow?"

Seaside Park was a local, overpriced amusement park with about five rides teenagers were allowed to enjoy, including one old school wooden roller coaster. The food was greasy and cost an arm and a leg. The cleaning staff was constantly engaged in battle against the stains of seagull shit on the boardwalk. The ocean was to the east, but young lovers sighed into each other on gaudily painted benches at sunset anyway.

"Oh your god."

"I know, right? Are you in or you in?" 

"Who’re you kidding? Of course I’m in."

Tobio was looking at her curiously. Yui was too busy trying not to squeal in front of him. 

Mio hummed on the other line and popped her lips.

“There’s two other tickets, you know,” Mio hinted.

“There are,” Yui repeated thoughtfully.

Mio sighed theatrically. “I suppose one of them could be for young Tobio. I serve a benevolent god, after all.”

Yui leapt for joy and grabbed onto Tobio’s sleeve.

“What?” Tobio asked.

“Well, call me converted,” Yui joked, before adding sincerely, “Mio, thank you so much. Really.”

“What would you do without me? I gotta run, details later. Bye-bye!” Mio hung up.

Yui stowed away her phone and shook Tobio by the shoulders. His eyes widened as he allowed himself to be playfully jostled back and forth. The black of his uniform was toasty under her fingers and he had undone his first few buttons. There was a tan line on his neck from the collar of his shirt.

“What is it?” Tobio’s voice shook as his head lolled from her force.

Yui stopped and looked up at him coyly. She wound a short curl around the tip of her pointer finger and put on her a-game princess pout. 

“You have any plans tomorrow?” she asked.

“None at all,” Tobio answered.

“Then. . .” She drew the word out, let the piece of hair fall from her finger, and tapped her cheek in phony consideration. “Maybe you could find it in your heart to spend the day with me?”

Tobio’s eyes brightened and he nodded vigorously. “That sounds great.”

He really doesn’t know how or when to play hard to get, Yui thought.

 

The next morning, at 10:09, Yui arrived at the tall gilded clock in the center of the entranceway for Seaside Park. Promptness wasn’t a facet of Yui’s personality and fashionably late was “in” this season. Plus, she had agonized for ten minutes staring at her naked face in the mirror and weighing the pros and cons of makeup melting off her face in the summer heat. Mrs. Michimiya had had none of this, however, and shoved Yui out the front door with only eyeliner, a touch of mascara, and a packet of makeup removal wipes for emergencies tucked into the pocket of her purse.

The gateway was already buzzing with activity. There was an overwhelming amount of noisy, sunscreen splattered, ankle-biting grade schoolers running around like they owned the place. Parents toted strollers, toddlers, backpacks, and coolers and already looked ready to turn this bus around. The air smelled of popcorn made by the corner vendors, dressed up in kid-friendly cartoon decorated aprons and cracking plastic smiles.

Standing in a close-quarters, Mio and Daichi were too busy bickering amongst themselves over something or another to notice her arrival. Mio’s point-making index finger was flying this way and that as Daichi rested one fist on his hip and brought himself up to maximum height. 

Tobio stood a few paces back, looking disgruntled with his hands shoved into the pockets of his olive green cargo shorts. He was wearing an oversized black t-shirt with white block letters spelling out “PRECISE DWARF BRAVERY.” Whatever the hell that meant. 

When Yui came into view, Tobio lifted his cheap dark shades and squinted. He then cheered up considerably, took a few running steps forward, frowned at Mio and Daichi, and carefully sidestepped around them.

“Michimiya, good morning!” he greeted. 

“Morning,” Yui replied. She could partially derive an undertone of cologne clinging to Tobio’s clothes. She approved.

“I was worried you weren’t coming,” Tobio admitted.

“And leave you as the most awkward third wheel in history? I’m not that cruel.” 

Yui took his hand and walked him back over to the others.

“No, really, I’m telling you, melting salt is, like, practically impossible!” Mio shouted.

“But when you drop it in water, poof!” Daichi argued back, miming a vanishing with his hands.

Mio clicked her tongue twice and her eyebrow twitched with irritation. “That’s _dissolving_.”

Daichi looked like he was having fun. He smiled with enough joy to produce two sets of laugh lines on his cheeks.

“I’m here,” Yui announced, interrupting Daichi’s chance at a rebuttal, “Let’s stop with the philosophy, aiight?”

Mio didn’t look ready to let the point go. 

“Phi- philosophy?” Daichi repeated, smothering a chuckle with his hand.

 

Mio was really gung-ho about going on every single ride, preferably in the order the group encountered them. No one wanted to argue with her. The first ride they discovered that wouldn’t tarnished their hard-earned teenage holier-than-thou attitudes was a black and blue version of the Disney tea cups. The line was surprisingly sparse, with other attendees willingly turning a blind eye on the innocent ride. They showed the cheerful young man manning the ride their bracelets and he warmly welcomed them aboard the ride. 

The four of them piled into a shiny black teacup decorated with fairies in long blue cloaks frolicking about. The seat was hard and rough. The silver ring in the middle for turning glinted mischievously in the summer sun. The ride attendant locked the small gate on the teacup and rattled it to test its strength.

Mio was pumped, tapping her feet in her flats on the floor of the teacup. “We gotta make it go as fast as possible!”

“Whatever you say.” Daichi grinned sheepishly. He was already clamped down on the silver ring.

Tobio removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the collar of his t-shirt. He joined Daichi on the ring.

“I’m not so sure about this, guys,” Yui said.

“Don’t be a baby, Yui,” Mio teased.

“Oh, now you’re asking for it!” She readied herself to pull for her life, challenge burning in her veins.

“Alright! Good morning, everyone!” the attendant chirped over the ride’s speakers. “As a safety precaution, please do not stand or attempt to exit the vehicle until the ride has come to a complete stop. Have a good time! I’ll be waiting for you when the ride is finished. Until then.”

The attendants voice cut out and was replaced with music.

“Huh? I know this song,” Tobio mentioned.

It was a classic rock song. The tone appeared mellow to Yui, who wasn’t sure if it matched the ride’s design at all. Was that cowbell?

The teacups crawled centimeters at first. Their teacup swayed to and fro as they decided a direction to spin the ring. They moved faster. Counter-clockwise was their chosen direction and everyone worked to move the ring. In less than thirty seconds, the ring was slick with the sweat of their palms. Faster still.

Yui could feel her shorts gripping the rough surface of the seat as she focused keeping them spinning. She laughed when she noticed the music getting louder as they passed the attendant’s stand, the words distorted as they swung by so quickly.

It suddenly got harder to spin the teacup. Yui looked up to scold the slacker and noticed Daichi leaning against the rim of the cup with his eyes closed and arms crossed firmly across his chest. He was looking mighty pale.

“What!” Mio complained. “Sawamura, you suck!”

But then, she too, was losing her grip on the bar, her hands were dragged with the motion instead of contributing to it. Her determination was draining from her face. She breathed deeply through her mouth and keep her gaze firmly affixed to the bar as the teacup spun round and round.

The ride slowed. Yui read the signs and let go of the bar, energy fading. She made the mistake of peeking over the teacup to the rest of the park and saw the blur of color and motion that strained her eyes. 

Tobio was still fighting, all by himself. Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose.

Yui reached over and patted his knee. “You can stop now.”

“Oh!” His hands flew off the bar as if he’d been shocked. “Alright.”

They slowed to a stop. Mio was massaging her temples and groaning. Daichi still hadn’t moved. His mouth hung open like his soul was attempting to evacuate.

The music faded and was replaced with a final announcement from the ride attendant.

“Thank you very much for riding The Reaper! I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves. I’ll be along shortly to unlock the gates. Please take care while exiting the ride.”

 

It wasn’t even 10:30 and Mio and Daichi were already 1000% done. Daichi openly begged for mercy. Mio stared emptily at the cement sidewalk speckled with dropped yellow pieces of popcorn and sighed. Tobio and Yui reluctantly left them leaning against each other on a bench with a bottle of water each.

“Well,” Yui said, holding up her wrist to show her plastic bracelet, “we can’t let these go to waste.”

 

There was the freefall tower - Yui screamed the whole way down and kicked her feet out to feel the air rush by her calves. The four other teenager boys strapped into the ride shouted at her to shut up. As they were unloading and lifting their harnesses off their shoulders, Tobio put a protective arm across Yui’s shoulders and mustered up the most vitriolic look in human existence.

“Hey, man, what’s your problem?” one of the guys asked, looking rather frazzled.

“Why don’t YOU shut up?” Tobio suggested. He was so serious. And like, forty-five seconds late to defend Yui, but you couldn’t knock the kid for trying.

Yui let out an embarrassing, unladylike guffaw. “Kageyama,” she managed, choking back giggles, “Let’s just, let’s just go to that next one.”

 

The wooden roller coaster left them both pink-faced and windswept. The sprinted through the exit to queue back up for it again right away. This time, Yui and Tobio agreed to smile for the camera on the inside of the bend for the last curve. The picture on the screen after they disembarked was truly precious with their eyes squinting against the wind and the noon sun. Their hair was blown away from their foreheads and only the tips of their peace signs peeked out from coaster car. Yui apologized to her wallet and bought a copy.

 

A break for their pounding hearts was in order, so Tobio and Yui meandered over to the ferris wheel and joined the long winding line at the entrance. They talked simple things - the exams they wanted to hurry up and forget already, volleyball, cats. Even though the stomach-nesting butterflies hadn’t off and died, the eye-contact induced blush reflex had cooled. 

Tobio pretended to play the piano with his fingers against the fence that held the line of people together and Yui joined in holding an imaginary oboe, humming along tunelessly. The back of Tobio’s neck was beginning to burn and Yui felt the same prickle on her cheeks. 

Finally, at long last, the two loaded into the enclosed compartment. The inside was approaching cruelly hot and humid even with the shade provided by the roof. Their compartment edged upward to allow for the next group to load and Yui gazed out the window. Down below, not 15 meters away, Daichi and Mio looking up at the ferris wheel using their hands to shade their eyes.

“Hey, look!” Yui said. She pressed her finger against the glass where Daichi and Mio were standing and beckoned Tobio over to see. “The dead rise again!”

“We can meet up with them when we get off. I’ll message him,” Tobio decided.

Yui waved him off, whipping out her cellphone with speed and accuracy attained only from years of practice. “I got it.”

She unlocked her screen and was confronted with a notification from UPTHERE;). She blinked several times in confusing and swiped to view the message.

“Be honest with your feelings,” he said. 

The message had been sent less than a minute ago.

Yui stared at the screen until it went dark, her heart pounding uncomfortably in her chest.

“What is it?” Tobio asked.

The ferris wheel carried them up to the top. The sounds of the crowds and the music of the rides was fading. Tobio observed her with mild concern. He had an arm resting over Yui’s half of the backrest. Behind him, the ocean glimmered with the crests of gentle waves reflecting the light.

She couldn’t explain why she said it. Perhaps it was the calm she felt as their knees knocked together, or how he drew out her laughter, or the way he looked so serious even when he was excited.

“I like you.”

Tobio froze for a tragic, stretching moment. He didn’t even breathe.

His lips parted, oh, why was Yui even looking at his mouth, and-

“Can I kiss you?”

Yui was drowning. Her heart submerged into a pool of mixing, swirling emotions: excitement, worry, happiness, and maybe, if the world would allow it, some droplets of miraculous teenage love. The moist air filled her lungs as she sucked in, providing her with no relief. Tobio’s eyes, deep-sea, inescapable depths blue, drew closer.

“Okay,” she breathed.

They lips met.

Soft.

A taste of salt.

The lingering scent of men’s cologne. 

The world had stilled with the their ferris wheel compartment at the apex, directly below the inclement sun. Heartbeats, irregular and capricious, passed instead of seconds. The time bubble burst as his hand reached into her hair and she shivered down to her toes. And then they parted, eyes blissfully closed. Yui felt his breath on her sensitive, tingling lips.

“I like you, too,” Tobio whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue
> 
>  
> 
> “Who messaged you earlier?” Tobio asked.
> 
> “Oh, just someone,” Yui answered vaguely.
> 
> “ _Someone_?” Tobio insisted.
> 
> Yui nodded. “By the name of ‘UPTHERE.’”
> 
> “Huh.” He wasn’t quite convinced.
> 
> That’s right, Yui realized. Mr.UpThere-WinkyFace had been rooting for them since the beginning!
> 
> “I suppose you could say. . .” Yui started. She smiled, looked up at the cloudless blue expanse of a sky, and said, “that _someone_ ‘UPTHERE’ likes me.”
> 
>  
> 
> ***  
> Yes, I did write this entire fic to make that terrible, terrible joke at the end. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
